- Directed by Jarand Herdal
- Written by Jarand Herdal
- Stars Gitte Witt, Thomas Gullestad, Thorbjorn Harr
- Run time: 1 Hour, 26 Minutes
Synopsis
Don’t read this unless you want spoilers. We liked it, so go watch it first.
As credits roll, children roam through an empty building and play with huge mounds of abandoned clothes. We see that this is a post-apocalyptic world, with buildings leaning against each other and people fighting for food on the street. Everything is dark and grey. A newspaper headlines announce that a nuclear war has occurred.
We start with a couple who are searching an apartment building, and they have a daughter named Alice. The mother, Leonora, used to be a Shakespearean actress. They’re out of food, but suddenly, a man comes down the street yelling to “Come and see the show! Escape the horrors with Matthias Vinterberg’s show! There’s enough for everyone!” The man explains that Mathias is wealthy and generous, and there will be food for all. They have seen the big hotel up on the hill with its lights still on. They need the food, so they decide to give it a shot. “What’s there to lose?” Leonora asks.
That evening, a group of people go up the hill and give the man their tickets. The doorman says the show isn’t for kids, and Alice isn’t allowed. Mathias comes out and says “children outside experience far worse horrors than what’s inside.” He allows her to come in too.
They go into the hotel dining room, and everything is clean and bright with dozens of guests and waiters in black and white serving outfits. Best of all, there’s food and lots of it. “It’s almost too good to be true,” says Leonora. After dinner, the show begins.
The hotel is our stage, he explains. He tells them to explore and investigate whatever interests them, and everything they see is staged and a show. Everyone is to wear a mask. The actors won’t be in masks, but all the audience will be. “It will be an experience unlike any other.”
Everyone puts on their masks and starts roaming the hotel. Some people without masks argue and fight while the masked people watch. Jacob and Leonora soon lose Alice. “I told you something felt off” shouts Jacob (ya think?). Leonora looks closely at a painting of a bloody lamb’s head, and it blinks at her.
One of the waiters tells them, “Trust no one!” And then cuts his own throat. They lose their masks somewhere along the way, and they are mistaken for actors and told to go to the ballroom. They find Alice’s stuffed toy bunny, and it has blood on it. It’s not real blood, it’s stage blood. There are many workers carrying wheelbarrows full of clothes around the hotel; they’re burning the clothes.
Jacob thinks the others have been killed, but Leonora has to believe that Alice is still OK somewhere and this is all just a show. We see some newspaper clippings fastened to the wall: “Daughter of famous director burned to death in fire” and “Man buys hotel where daughter was killed.” The photo of the daughter looks exactly like Alice.
Leonora watches Mathias explain things to some new actors that they need to be intriguing enough that the audience follows them. The audience outnumbers the actors, also they have to be careful. Leonora starts seeing Alice everywhere, and it’s clear she gone a little crazy. Or is this a special effect that’s part of the show? The bald, white-suited worker tells one of the actors that they aren’t allowed in the tunnels beneath the hotel, and the actor wonders why— it appears they don’t know what’s going on either. Or do they?
Leonora finds a secret trap door that leads to the tunnels. The tunnels are full of secret doors, peep-holes, and dead people. Now things are getting real. The workers are actually butchers, cutting up dead bodies. Leonora gets knocked out and awakens hanging upside down in the meat locker. Mathias comes over and asks her to join them. “What would you do to keep your family alive?” He asks. She refuses, so the butcher gets ready to do his job on her. Jacob walks in, and he’s decided to work with Mathias. He takes the butcher’s scalpel but hits the butcher – he was faking it. The butcher then kills Jacob and is killed by Leo. Jacob’s dead for real, but Alice may still be alive.
The next show begins, with a new batch of guests. Leo puts on the guest mask and follows Mathias as a new round of guest-purging begins. Leo goes to the ballroom and explains everything to the audience, but she’s not wearing a mask, so they think it’s part of the act. She starts quoting Shakespeare and then leads the audience into the tunnels, where they outnumber the workers. Some of the actors join in, wanting their own escape.
Before long, there’s a stampede of audience members and actors running for the exits while Mathias watches helplessly. The actors themselves turn against him. Leo and Alice are eventually reunited and go home to their happy ending, out in the post-apocalyptic world with no food.
Commentary
Right after the hotel bit started, I immediately thought of Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom (1975) The large group of people playing strange (and probably deadly) games was probably what did it. The set was very reminiscent of The Shining or Doctor Sleep, with the long, red corridors and weirdness in every room.
It’s very dark, mysterious, and suspenseful. You never quite know what is going on here until the end, and it’s all very tense. There’s always a chance that this really is just a weird show. You keep hoping that it’s just a weird show. In the end, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a horror film, as all the nastiness is completely real.